1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a home appliance networking system and a method for controlling the same. More particularly the present invention relates to a home appliance networking system and a method for controlling the same, wherein an additional home appliance is efficiently made interoperable with an existing home networking system including a plurality of home appliances when it is connected to an internal network of the home networking system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A home networking system has recently become increasingly widely spread in which a network is constructed to transmit and receive data to/from a plurality of home appliances installed in a home or building and the plurality of home appliances are connected to the constructed network to be interoperable with one another.
Particularly, in a home appliance networking system, a user can not only recognize state (or condition) information of a specific home appliance from any place inside of a home, but can also control the specific home appliance using a control system, such as a computer, from any place outside of the home. In this regard, the home appliance networking system has obtained favorable responses from many consumers, and has thus become more widespread in its application on an almost daily basis.
Recently, in order to construct the home appliance networking system as mentioned above, an internal network composed of a power line or local area network (LAN) line is constructed in a home or building and a plurality of home appliances are connected to the constructed internal network to transmit and receive data to/from one another.
The plurality of home appliances connected to the internal network may generally be classified into an active type, such as an audio receiver, capable of transmitting control commands to other home appliances, and a passive type, such as a speaker, capable of being controlled according to a control command transmitted from an active home appliance.
On the other hand, a general home networking system comprises a network management system connected to the internal network for controlling transmission and reception of data over the internal network such that the plurality of home appliances can efficiently transmit and receive data over the internal network.
In the case where an additional new home appliance is connected to the existing home appliance networking system includes which the network management system, active home appliances and passive home appliances as stated above, the network management system and the active home appliances must recognize information regarding the passive home appliances. For this reason, the network management system and the active home appliances have to continuously monitor whether a new home appliance has been connected to the internal network, resulting in an increase in the amount of data unnecessarily transmitted and received over the internal network.